Drinking-water supply sources and hydrological droughts: influence of tourism demand and reservoir availability on groundwater exploitation for the Rimini case study

The analysis of the factors driving the exploitation of drinking-water sources is fundamental in the modelling and planning of water supply systems. To this end, it is important to assess the impacts of water scarcity, related to periods of hydrological drought, on the use of the available sources. This is of particular interest in touristic regions, where resource management must necessarily take into account also the significant seasonal fluctuation of urban demand.

As part of the European project SIMTWIST (Simulating Tourism Water Consumption with Stakeholders), the study analyses the factors influencing both the demand for drinking-water supply of the city of Rimini and the apportionment of the supply among the different sources available to the water manager (RomagnaAcque-Società delle Fonti SpA). In fact, the city is supplied with both surface water, from the Ridracoli reservoir in the Apennines, and groundwater from well fields on the alluvial fans of the Marecchia and Conca rivers.

The drivers include socio-economic variables (tourist attendance), climatic variables and hydrological availability. In particular, it is analysed how the exploitation of the groundwater source varies as a function of water availability at the Ridracoli reservoir, characterizing such availability through meteorological and hydrological drought indices computed on the upstream catchments.

The analysis, in addition to confirming how the management of the resource cannot, in Mediterranean regions, disregard tourism factors, helps to understand the link between hydrological droughts, governing the availability of river-fed reservoir supply, and the choices made by water managers in the exploitation of the groundwater sources.